FedScoop Radio

As the one-year anniversary of President Biden’s Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity Approaches, government agencies are still in the early stages of their zero-trust journeys. According to one cybersecurity expert, it’s important for government to be patient throughout this process. “It's a fiction to think that there is a ‘big bang’ by which they can make the entire enterpris...

Federal agencies are trying to slow the flow of cybersecurity talent leaving government in addition to bringing new talent in. According to one solutions expert, the cybersecurity field must rethink how the next generation is being taught and welcomed to the field. “They understand a lot of these [cybersecurity] concepts, they just don’t have the hands on,” says Eric Irizarry. “We don’t teach thos...

Whether it be to save time, to save money, or a lack of people in the workforce, pre-made technology solutions are becoming increasingly popular for the federal government. According to one IT expert, this is helping government organizations accelerate efforts including cloud adoption. This podcast was produced by Scoop News Group for The Daily Scoop Podcast and underwritten by AWS in collaboratio...

As organizations begin to transition out of pandemic response, many will use the zero-trust architecture adopted during remote work to continue bolstering their security posture. According to one chief security officer, this means prioritizing endpoint protection. “If you think about the core pillars and constructs of zero trust, one of the more important ones is the endpoint,” says Sean Frazier,...

Cybersecurity has quickly become a top priority for agencies across government. According to a former FedRAMP director, budget constraints are making IT modernization projects, like cloud adoption, a driver for cybersecurity upgrades. “When you look at it conservatively, only 10-to-15% of the budget on IT is spent on R&D, and maybe another 10-to-15% spent on modernization,” says Matt Goodrich of S...

Federal agencies are now tasked with rapidly integrating the customer experience and cybersecurity components of the President’s Management Agenda. According to one IT expert, being able to do this at speed will allow organizations to consistently tie together cybersecurity and operational capabilities. “Really driving the ability to reach compliance and operational security in context will make a...

As organizations begin releasing their back-to-office plans, human capital and technology leaders in government are grappling with finding the right balance in the hybrid work world. According to one technology evangelist, it’s most important for these leaders to let people be the most productive in whatever environment they choose to work in. “What we’re seeing is bringing people greater autonomy...

Government agencies are handling more data than ever, increasing the need for tools to analyze that data in a timely manner. This ability is a top priority for IT leaders across government, according to Kinetica Chief Executive Officer Nima Negabhan. “What's more of an emerging trend is having that data constantly streaming in, and being able to actually analyze it in a meaningful way is what gove...

Through executive order and the Biden-Harris presidential management agenda, government agencies are being influenced to improve their customer experience with the American public. According to one IT expert, the transformation was jump-started by the shift to the virtual environment during the pandemic. “Huge gains are being made in the mission in terms of citizen-facing tools that allow citizens...

Last year, President Biden’s executive order on cybersecurity put the transition to zero-trust architecture at the top of mind for IT leaders across government. According to one cybersecurity expert, it begins with organizations putting in place technologies that can support zero trust across the enterprise. “A tactical approach is beginning to say, OK, even as we have got what seems like an infin...

Phishing attacks are becoming an increasingly common avenue for threat actors to deploy malware and ransomware. According to one cybersecurity expert, an organization’s first line of defense against these attacks is getting all employees to realize they are high-value targets. “What organizations can do to help bolster cybersecurity within their organization is educating their employees that even...

Defense against cyberattacks is more than just updating technology and patching systems. While an organization can have the process and technology in place, the right cybersecurity culture is paramount, says Cybereason Chief Security Officer Sam Curry. “The biggest problem in cybersecurity is a people problem,” Curry tells Francis Rose on The Daily Scoop Podcast. “It’s people on offense and it’s p...

With the continued cybersecurity push across government and industry, it is increasingly important for organizations to have proactive cyber plans in place. One private sector CTO recommends a combination of security checklists and security goals. “New regulatory frameworks that are coming out are really focusing on impact as opposed to actions,” says Archis Gore, CTO at Polyverse. “Where the frus...

Federal agencies are starting to see significant advantages in reversing how they gather and analyze data to fuel their artificial intelligence efforts. Instead of pulling massive amounts of data into centralized data lakes for analysis, enterprises are staring to send analytics tools to the edge of their networks to parse localized data and then federate the results. The change in approach repres...

The advent of containerized software services — and the emergence of Kubernetes to deploy and manage them – have played crucial roles in modernizing applications. But it has also unleashed a host of new opportunities for malicious actors to exploit misconfigurations and vulnerabilities inside these microservices, says Palo Alto Networks' Paul Fox. That’s why he says federal agencies should take a...

With massive amounts of data being captured outside of data centers and at the edge, there is a growing need for organizations to use cloud to modernize edge computing environments. According to one cloud expert, this is driving the move for hybrid IT adoption across government and industry. “What you see in the private sector is they want to deal with the data where it's generated, so they can ge...

Cohesive and consistent messaging from the federal government is an important part of the push for agencies to implement zero trust architecture. Making sure the new processes are easy and accessible is just as important, says Peter Romness, cybersecurity programs lead, U.S. public sector, Cisco Systems. “Users are seeing the need for more security, so they're willing to do things like multi-facto...

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically shifted expectations of how and where federal employees work at most federal agencies. But what agency leaders may not have fully considered, warns a government network expert, is how agencies can ensure their employees have reliable connections from various hybrid locations, including their homes. “In an office situation, if an employee's internet connection...

As government agencies continue to implement and adjust return to office plans, it is clear that remote work and hybrid work postures will continue to be part of day-to-day operations. With many factors remaining uncertain, it is important for organizations to remain willing and able to adjust when handling their workforce, says Stephen Ellis. 
“There's so many intertwined elements in [return to o...

As agencies continue to embrace cloud solutions, the need to integrate systems has taken on new importance. At the same time, finding the right talent to help with cloud integration remains a challenge. That’s where a low-code, no-code integration platform-as-a-service model is becoming increasingly beneficial for agencies, says Public Sector Chief Technology Officer Joseph Flynn at Dell Boomi. “P...

Government agencies at the federal agencies have almost universally seen their long-term plans for IT upgrades put on a fast-track this past year in response to surges in demands to support remote workers and fulfill public services. One factor that helped make that possible — and in many ways, has put agencies in a stronger position to modernize moving forward — was the increasing reliance on ope...

Any natural disaster — be it hurricane, fire, earthquake of flood — has the potential to l disrupt communications. But for federal agencies and their field offices, it’s critical that they keep their lines of communication open so that they can serve their constituents. The challenge, according to Tony Bardo, assistant vice president for government solutions at Hughes, is that “most agency network...

The sharp uptick in successful cyber attacks during the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a stark reminder to government leaders that their existing security strategies still leave adversaries plenty of vulnerabilities to exploit. According to former White House security advisor Dan Prieto, cyber attackers continue to find new ways to capitalize on weak points in legacy infrastructure and virtual privat...

As agencies look to improve network performance and security, one approach that often gets overlooked involves converging the tools and data belonging to agency NOCs and SOCs — network operations centers and security operations centers. Years of entrenched operating practices, budgeting and acquisition authorities, and cultural dispositions have tended to drive network and security operations team...

Google Cloud’s Gary Danoff shares the benefits agencies reap when they embrace virtual collaboration platforms and best-practices for those implementing hybrid-work strategies. Agencies adopted a variety of collaboration platforms over the last year, creating new connections between humans and technology that allow them to shift seamlessly between working virtually and working in-person. “I think...